Wonderless
by w0lfermelon
Summary: Non-Magical AU. Teddy Lupin is a jaded photographer and Victoire Weasley a failed actress turned model. Their inevitable meeting leaves them separated from each other, but the promise of a photo shoot and a rapidly declining faith in humanity have tied them inexorably together and neither is willing to let the other go.
1. Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want

**Title:**** Wonderless**

**Summary:**** Non-Magical AU. Teddy Lupin is a photographer with dreams of artistic integrity relegating to snapping pictures for lads' mags. Unable to make it as an actress, Victoire Weasley has found herself posing for glamour pictures. Alone and adrift in London as they both rapidly loose faith in their chosen professions, the two meet and are torn apart by the city more than just once, but Victoire promised Teddy a real photo shoot, one day.**

**Warnings:**** Smut, strong and possibly offensive language, crude sexual references, drug references, references to eating disorders.**

**Also posted on archiveofourown under the pen name Elvamire.**

Teddy had set his alarm for nine in the morning, but had managed to sleep through it on account of the sound being muffled by his pillow. As such, he didn't actually roll out of bed until around noon.

"It's too early for this." He muttered to himself, rubbing sleep out of his eyes and glancing absently around his flat. It was a studio, tiny and something of a mess, with the bed unmade to the point that the grey sheets were recoiling from the mattress and dirty dishes piling menacingly high in the sink. The artwork on the walls was hung crookedly, and the calendar was two months out of date. The only thing in his home that was clean was the multi-level rat cage in the corner next to the sofa, where Loki, Hermes and Puck lived a better quality of life than Teddy ever hoped to.

Teddy pottered about in his boxers for some time, changing the food and water for his rats and receiving a bite on the finger from Loki for his trouble, and leaning against the kitchen counter eating cereal out of a bowl that was mostly clean. He was chewing contentedly on a mouthful of soggy Cornflakes when he decided to glance at the clock, and did a rapid double take.

Swearing, Teddy dropped the bowl unceremoniously into the sink and winced at the sound of cracking ceramic, stumbling over to the dresser by his bed that stored all of his clothes. He hadn't realised he'd slept in at all, let alone how late. He had to be at the shoot for one in the afternoon.

The curtains were wide open as he stumbled out of his old underwear and into a new outfit, but he honestly no longer cared about how much of his body the sweet old lady across the street saw. It would be nothing new to her by this point, if she hadn't already dropped dead of a heart attack when he'd left the curtains open on that threesome with the Russian models.

` Dressed, Teddy grabbed his camera, his baby, from where it lay on his nightstand and hung it from around his neck. He paused a moment in front of the bathroom mirror to insert the contacts he couldn't see with out, but most people assumed were for aesthetic reasons. He supposed it was his own fault for buying them with coloured yellow irises.

He grabbed his satchel (his man-bag, as his dear god brother so eloquently put it) and blazer on the way out of the door as he called goodbye to his rats. Then he was dashing down the stairs, taking them two at a time. There was a lift in the building, but a race between it and a mildly brain damaged snail would have been a photo finish. Most of the building was in at least a minor state of disrepair, with graffiti on the exposed stone walls of the stairwell and burn marks from cigarette butts on the ground. It was affordable, though, and that was the main point.

Teddy squinted in the sunlight when he emerged from the building, holding up his free hand over his eyes as the other finished pulling the blazer on over his striped shirt. London was bright during the summer, and busy, full of even more tourists to compete for space with the natives on the street. On a Saturday, it was busier still. The street outside his building was crowded with people, some hurrying and others dawdling or stopping right in the middle of the pavement to stare slack-jawed at maps. Teddy had no idea why anyone would want to go on holiday to London. Then again, he had no idea why anyone would want to live in London, either, but he still did.

He joined the masses of people that actually seemed to want to get where they were going sometime within the next few years, dodging through the crowds to get to the nearest Underground station. The delay of lying in and not realising he'd done so had eaten a chunk out of his morning, and if he didn't hurry he wasn't going to be at the shoot on time.

Navigating the Underground had been a nightmare when he'd first moved to the city, fresh out of university and far more optimistic than he could ever remember being at the present day. Over time it had grown to be second nature, even during the busy days like this one. He'd never been to the hotel that was his destination before, but he had it's name and the lines he needed to take to get to it written down on a scrap of paper in the pocket of his skinny jeans, so that wasn't a problem.

But even in his best moods, Teddy hated the Underground still. It became even worse in the summer months, when it was swelteringly hot in the trains as well as cramped. There was no novelty in people watching, he just absolutely did not want to be spoken to. To this end, being on a train instantly turned him into the human incarnation of anti-socialness. He sat down on a seat at the very end of the row, bowed his head to stare defiantly at his lap and crossed his arms over his chest, and put in his headphones to blare The Smiths at a deafening volume. He radiated an air of pure, '_don't talk to me_.' Being approached by people during his commute to whatever shooting scene he was going to that day had never ended well for Teddy, they always seemed to be creepy old men or vapid girls lisping about how artistic he was after they'd spotted his camera, and could he maybe take their picture or put in a good word for them?

His spine stayed rigid throughout the entire journey until his stop, at which jumped up and walking briskly away with the music still reverberating around his brain.

_So please, please, please, let me, let me, let me, let me get what I want._

When he exited the Underground and got back up to street level, the hotel that Teddy was meant to get to became immediately obvious. It was diagonally across the street from the station, dark against the skyline with its windows glaring in the sunlight. Teddy hurried over to it, dodging around gridlocked traffic as he crossed the road before entering the lobby.

It was an expensive place to stay, he could see that much. The carpet was thick and plush beneath his feet, the wallpaper detailed and tasteful. He felt out of place as he moved over towards the golden doors for the lifts, the key for the correct room already in his pocket. In the lift, he removed his headphones and put his iPod away in the satchel, bouncing awkwardly on the balls of his feet until he reached the second floor and stepped out.

The corridor was mirrored at the end of it, creating the illusion that it went on forever. Ignoring uncomfortable flashbacks to _The Shining_, Teddy wandered along, glancing at the dark, varnished wood of the doors until he found the correct room number emblazoned in gold upon one and let himself in.

The rest of the minimalist crew for the photo shoot were already there: the makeup artist and hairdresser, wardrobe and the director of the shoot. The latter was a smiling, aging man with a scruffy beard and expanding waistline who came over to enthusiastically shake Teddy's hand. He reminded him somewhat of his boss.

"Mr Lupin?" He asked, to verify. Teddy nodded. "Good, good, glad you're finally here. I'm Michael. Call me Michael."

"I will." Teddy said with another nod. He glanced around the room, taking it all in. It was as lavish as the rest of the hotel had been, with more pillows than anyone could ever need piled on the silken purple bed sheets and a glass chandelier hanging over head. The curtains had been drawn over the windows, and the tasselled lamps on the nightstands were on. A perfume bottle and open book had been left scattered around- props, Teddy assumed. More lights were set up out of shot, giving the room a slightly gloomy, broody lighting effect.

Impulsively, Teddy broke away from Michael and went over to remove most of the cushions from the bed, putting them to one side where the camera wouldn't see them. He was already forming a vision of the photographs in his head, and they didn't include all those pillows. There was something else, too… He opened one set of the curtains a crack, letting sunlight spill into the room and across the bed. Another set that would have been out of shot, he opened more fully, illuminating the hotel room further. He wanted bright, clean lighting.

Behind him, Michael cleared his throat, and Teddy turned around sheepishly.

"Mr Lupin, I would like to introduce you to our lovely model." He said, nodding towards the painted white vanity table by the door.

Teddy hadn't noticed the young woman before, since she had been mostly hidden by the makeup artist still fussing over her. Now, though, as she stood up from the vanity table and walked towards Teddy, he definitely saw her. She had pale blonde hair that had been teased into large, volumized curls around her head and aggressively sprayed into place. Her heart-shaped face was heavily made up, pale skin covered by a layer of foundation and her large, light blue eyes surrounded with sultry, smoky shadow while her eyelashes were lengthened with fakes. Her full, curved lips had been glossed over, pink and shining.

Teddy thought, for a moment, that she was the most attractive woman he'd ever seen.

"This is Victoria de la Cour." Michael introduced the model, to which she smiled faintly. Teddy had seen enough fake smiles in his time to know them by now, but he said nothing about it.

Without being asked, Victoria went to sit down on the edge of the king size bed. She was wearing nothing but a pink silk dressing gown, and her legs were hugged by dark, sheer tights where they emerged beneath it. Her shoes were black stiletto heels. Once she had sat down, she slid the dressing gown off and handed it to the waiting wardrobe assistant, revealing the lingerie beneath- it too was pink silk, edged and adorned with black lace and fitting perfectly to the contours of her body, the bra pushing her breasts up and together.

Glamour work was not something that Teddy had ever wanted to get into. His preferred type of photography was artful, indie, innovative and original. When he did photograph people- which was rare- they were unique-looking girls in forests and brooding by lakes, with the focus on their environment and interaction with it. He wanted to take pictures that would be regarded as art, and make people think. Photographing girls who would be published in glossy magazines on the top shelf of the newsagents was not his great ambition. It had been novel and fun for the first few weeks, but he quickly began to grow desensitized even to nearly-nude attractive women spreading themselves out in front of him. He'd complained to James over texts that soon enough he wouldn't even be able to get it up anymore when faced with a naked, willing girl. However, freelance artsy pictures had been getting him nowhere. The photography company he'd ended up working for specialised in glamour, so glamour models were what he photographed. At least he earned a living from it.

This girl, though… he suddenly didn't feel so resentful towards his job. She was so, so beautiful.

"Are you ready?" Victoria asked from the bed, her head tilted curiously, childishly. Her voice was sweet and soft, and Teddy could only nod. She smiled again, a smaller smile but still a fake one, and began to pose.

She knew all about glamour modelling, that much was clear. She lay on her back on the bed with her legs in the air, showing off the suspenders that held up her stockings while her hands lay on her breasts, hair spilling over the edge of the bed as she gazed innocently at the camera. She sat cross-legged on the sheets and peered at the lens through her curled hair, one corner of her mouth curled up in a smile. She let her heels trail on the floor as she hugged a pillow, looking like she might laugh. She was playful, she was quirky, she was different. She conveyed innocence and enjoyment and that, Teddy thought, was sexier than any brooding pout he'd seen so far.

Then just like that, she had changed, and suddenly she _was_ sex. She oozed sensuality, crouched like a cougar on the bed and biting her lip at the camera. She laid on her back, euphoric and falsely post-orgasmic, the straps of her designer bra down around her shoulders. She turned to face away from the camera and pulled her briefs down slightly, exposing the creamy pale skin of her backside. She pouted, preened, pushed her breasts towards the lens and made faces like she was in the most intense, yet subdued pleasure Teddy had ever seen. She was sexy, and classy, and again he thought about how beautiful she was. His camera clicked and clicked, capturing image after image of Victoria, of her back arched as she lay on all fours on the bed, then lying with the tips of her fingers creeping inside her briefs, then her arse in the air and face in the pillows, breathless, exuding arousal. She _knew_ how to model, how to make the camera love her as much as the men buying her magazine would.

"Brilliant, isn't she?" Michael whispered conspirationally to Teddy when the shoot was over and he was looking pointedly away from Victoria as she dressed, and yet again, the young photographer could only nod.


	2. There Is a Light That Never Goes Out

Despite Michael's wishes, Teddy left the hotel quickly after the shoot was over; he had little desire to linger with these people and make idle talk whilst trying to ignore Victoria changing in the corner.

The street outside had been quiet when he'd entered the hotel, and it was even quieter now that a little more time had passed. Standing just beside the hotel steps, he decided he was alone enough to risk it. He blindly rummaged around inside his satchel until he managed to produce a pack of Marlboros and a plain lighter made of blue plastic. He took a cigarette from the pack and lit it, lifting it to his lips and taking a drag. He could have smoked out of the window of his flat just as easily, but he'd been craving one now and didn't have the patience to wait.

When the cigarette had dwindled slowly down, leaving neat piles of ash on the concrete around Teddy's feet, he heard the door open behind him. He paused, glancing over his shoulder and blinking in faint, irrational surprise to see Victoria walking down the steps. She had changed, obviously, into actual clothes rather than lingerie just covered by a dressing gown. The actual surprise, he thought, came from _what_ she was wearing; a plain white dress cinched in at the waist with a silver belt, grey wool tights and an oversized, dark magenta duffle coat. It seemed like such a simple outfit, and so demure with the dress almost reaching her knees and the flat shoes on her feet, that it wasn't something Teddy would have expected a glamour model to wear. Stereotypical, perhaps, but he'd met enough of them by now to build up an opinion.

The model's eyes found Teddy and she glanced quickly away, almost as if embarrassed. Frowning a little, he called hello to her anyway, and she looked back at him like a startled rabbit.

"Hello." She replied in return stopping in front of Teddy with her pale fingers clutching the strap of the bag over her shoulder.

"I just wanted to tell you that you're a really good model." Teddy said to her, which admittedly may not have been all he wanted, but still. "Honestly. You're one of the best I've seen, and I've been doing this job for a while."

Victoria looked wary, but she nodded slowly.

"Thank you." She said, and was silent. Scrambling for a way to fix the conversation before it was lost, Teddy continued,

"Actually, Victoria, I-"

To his surprise, she interrupted him.

"You do know that's not my real name, don't you?" She said, seeming a little irritated by his use of it. Teddy smiled wryly.

"I had a feeling. What is your name, then?" He asked. He knew a lot of models didn't use their real name for their work, and something like Victoria de la Cour was blatantly fake.

The blonde paused before answering, shifting awkwardly on the spot. Away from the shoot, she carried herself with an entirely different demeanour. The perfectly styled hair and heavy but tasteful makeup looked odd on her, like a child who had raided her mother's dressing table. More than that, it didn't match her clothes at all.

"Victoire." She finally replied. "Victoire Weasley."

Teddy beamed, extending a hand which she shook hesitantly. He saw her eyes flicker to the cigarette held loose between his fingers, wrinkling her nose distastefully. _Adorable _was not a word he thought he ever would have applied to a glamour model, but…

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Victoire." Teddy said with his most charming smile. "I'm Edward Lupin. No one's actually called me that in my entire life, though- it's Teddy." He told her. She smiled; the tiniest smile possible, but more honest than the ones he'd seen back in the hotel room.

"_Enchanté_." Victoire said.

Teddy saw now why her fake name was what it was- Victoria sounded similar enough to Victoire, although one thing still puzzled him slightly despite her use of French.

"So, why de la Cour, of all the last names you could have picked?" He asked curiously. Victoire seemed dubious about answering, and even still slightly confused at his attention, but she shrugged and answered regardless.

"My mother's maiden name was Delacour. I always liked it." She said, her fingers playing with the strap of her bag. Her eyes didn't remain stationary on Teddy, but rather darted around, watching the road one moment and staring at a scrap of chewing gum stuck to the pavement the next. Teddy could have made an educated guess that she would head off soon, back home, and he would probably never see her again. He found, too, that it wasn't what he wanted to happen. Something about the features of this girl's face and the guarded yet oddly innocent look in her eyes was inactivating to him. He wanted to sleep with her, he recognised that much, and more than that, he wanted to photograph her.

"It is a nice name." He agreed, a little more hurriedly than the suave, flirtatious side of him would have liked, and then continued, "Listen, Victoire, are you doing anything right now?"

Victoire blinked at him, shifting her weight from one foot to the other before shaking her head. She was smiling again, slightly and crookedly, a knowing smile.

"Would you like to have lunch with me?" Teddy asked. "I haven't eaten yet, so I was going to get something anyway, and if you'd like to join me that would make my day." He said, flashing her a winning smile. It was true, too- he was starving. However, he'd only been planning to grab a McDonalds on the way back to his flat. If Victoire accepted his invitation, he'd have to pay out for a proper meal at a restaurant. Nevertheless, he wanted her to accept. He wanted a chance to talk to her, to watch her and the delicate way she moved.

"I think I will." Victoire replied with another smile and a helpless little shrug. Teddy beamed, then frowned as a thought occurred to him.

"I, uh, don't really know my way around this part of London." He admitted, running a hand through his hair somewhat awkwardly. "So if you're willing to get the tube-"

"No need." Victoire interjected smoothly. "I know my way around here. There's a café two streets down that's absolutely lovely, if you'd like to go there."

"Sure, sure." Teddy nodded enthusiastically. Anything to persuade this girl that he was worth spending time with.

Victoire smiled again before moving as if to head off down the street. Teddy paused to drop his cigarette and crush it underneath his shoe before he followed her.

"That's a vile habit, you know." Victoire said, making a mildly disapproving, mildly disgusted facial expression that wrinkled her nose. "It smells, and it's bad for you."

"And here I was thinking you weren't the type to lecture strangers on their habits." Teddy shrugged. "I picked it up when I was fourteen and never had the power to quit."

"Fascinating." Victoire said dryly, then looked away from him to point down the street. "It's just down here."

The café turned out to be a small, yet charming little hole-in-the-wall establishment. The inner walls were painted white and the floor was a pale laminate, with plants grouped in corners and art pieces mixed with photography adorning the walls. There was a specials menu written on a blackboard that leant against the counter, and Teddy couldn't see a single table in there which had any more than two seats grouped around it.

The main menu was on the wall behind the counter, printed in minimalist font. Everything was expensive, and gave the impression that it would be served in a tiny portion on a square plate.

"Would you mind if I went to the bathroom for just a moment?" Victoire turned to ask. "You can order while I'm gone, I'll just tell you what I want-"

"Uh." Teddy stammered, wondering how to best cover up the fact that he had no idea what he was supposed to do in this sort of place. He was a creature of habit, and habit meant takeaways. "Actually, it's- I think I'd rather you ordered for me, since you- you know this place and everything."

Victoire frowned, a small crease running along the skin of her forehead.

"Okay. Could you get us a table, then?"

Teddy nodded, and went to sit down in a corner that still managed to be adjacent to a window. The entire front of the café seemed to be windows, from what he could tell.

He watched Victoire disappear into the ladies' bathroom before he let his head drop into his hand. Other glamour models he'd spoken to after the shoot had ended up back at his flat very shortly, and not for private pictures. He never properly socialised with them, and they certainly didn't drag him to fancy cafes. Victoire, clearly, was a cultured and refined woman despite the profession she had fallen into. Teddy had no business spending any time at all with her.

He wallowed in his own self doubt and bad decisions until Victoire returned to the table, carrying a tray of food. The tray lifted his spirits immensely- it was brown, textured plastic, like every tray he'd ever seen in a fast food restaurant in his life. The tray seemed like home. The china the food was on made him feel better too- is was round, and the patterns were mismatched.

When Victoire sat down, Teddy's eyes widened. In the bathroom, she'd brushed the hairspray out of her blonde locks so that the curled style had come away, letting it fall naturally to the small of her back. It wasn't straight, but waved. The makeup was gone too, leaving her face bare; he saw for the first time the freckles that dusted the tops of her cheeks. They made her look like a pixie. She looked like no one he'd ever expect to see immortalized in their underwear on the pages of a magazine.

"I know it's a bit early, but I was craving afternoon tea." Victoire confided, passing over to Teddy a plate of egg and cress sandwiches, and then another with a muffin on it. Her sandwiches were cucumber, and the muffin replaced by a scone. She'd brought teacups on saucers to the table as well, and a steaming tea pot.

Teddy was at a loss. The food looked good, but like it would make him even hungrier than he already was. Afternoon tea was a foreign concept to him, and he hadn't even been aware cafes like this one existed in London.

Victoire, meanwhile, was calmly pouring tea into a pastel blue china cup and stirring in copious amounts of sugar. She lifted it to her pink lips and sipped. Teddy's gaze fell on her, and as far as he was concerned, his sandwiches no longer existed. With the makeup gone and her hair undone, she seemed even lovelier than before. She was paler, and not nearly as perfect, but she matched her clothes now and seemed infinitely more comfortable in her own skin. The sunlight through the windows made her hair lighter and her skin glow, and with her eyes downcast and their lashes fanning down across her cheeks, she seemed almost ethereal. She was a lost faery, sitting in a teashop. Again, Teddy ached for his camera. He wanted to photograph her in the autumn woods with sunlight filtering down through the dying leaves, soaked on a beach with her white dress clinging to her skin, dirty and winged on a rooftop, a bird in the world. Every time he looked at her, he thought of pictures he could take of her.

The spell was broken by the muffled sounds of music from his pocket. Teddy was too distracted to hear it, but Victoire was not.

"Your phone's ringing." She told him, ignoring the napkin to wipe a smear of butter off her lips with a finger. It took a moment for Teddy to process the words, but when he did, he grabbed his phone and ignored the call. He didn't care who it was- he wanted to be alone with Victoire. He looked back at her, and she was smiling.

"_There is a light and it never goes out_." She sang quietly and rather off-key. Her singing voice was girlish, like that of a child. "I love The Smiths."

Teddy thanked his stars that he had ever picked that song for his ringtone. He dived headfirst into conversation.

"Do you like hipster music, then?" He asked enthusiastically and yet self-deprecatingly, imagining the bands they could discuss, the far-fetched scenarios of concerts he could take her to. To his dismay, Victoire shook her head.

"No, I just like old music," She corrected him, and added after a moment, "And Regina Spektor."

Teddy was floored. There was a girl sitting in front of him who looked like a faery and liked Regina Spektor. He wasn't sure what he'd done to deserve this, but he planned to do a lot more of it. If only he could actually figure out what to say to her.

In lieu of conversation, he began attacking the food that Victoire had selected for him. 'Selected,' in this case simply meant, 'picked randomly from the menu,' but Teddy had no way of knowing that.

"So was posing naked always what you wanted to do for a living?" He finally spoke, through a mouthful of egg and cress, and was instantly horrified. His eyes were on the table top, but in his periphery he saw Victoire freeze.

"Actually, no." She said with a twisted, wrong smile. She clasped her hands together on the table, looking down rather than daring to face Teddy. "I wanted to be an actress. Not in films, or television, but a stage actress." She shrugged, an attempt to appear nonchalant that failed horribly. "I never got any parts. I had to earn money somehow."

"And you chose glamour modelling?" Teddy said, raising an eyebrow at her. Victoire gave him a sharp look.

"It earns more money than standing behind a till at the corner shop would. And at least I'm still putting myself in the public eye- it's almost like performing." She sounded like she was trying to defend the modelling to herself, rather than Teddy. He tried to quickly change the subject.

"So is that why you came to London? You wanted to be an actress?" He asked her, hoping he sounded as interested in her as he actually was. Her, and not what was under the skirt of her dress.

"No." Victoire shook her head. "My parents live in a tiny cottage in a tiny village right by the sea. It's very quaint and beautiful, but I hated it. I always wanted to live in a big city. London seemed like the biggest."

Teddy nodded pensively, drinking in her words.

"I like London, but I liked my gran's house too- she lived in a tiny place, like your parents." Teddy said. "I'd have stayed there, but there weren't any photography opportunities. Not like there are here." He explained. Victoire tilted her head quizzically. Teddy knew instantly what she was wondering. It was the same thing everyone wondered. She was wondering why he was talking about his gran. An intelligent girl like Victoire, he guessed, would be able to figure out that it was because he'd lived with her, so now she'd be wondering why that was.

He wouldn't tell her. He wanted her to think he was interesting, but telling the sob story of his poor dead parents wouldn't do that. It would just make her pity him.

Teddy looked at Victoire, and Victoire looked at the table and then at the counter before abruptly getting up. The chair complained as it scraped along the wooden floor.

"I'll pay the bill." She offered. "And then we can both go home, okay?"

Teddy felt like his stomach had tried to do a flip but tripped over halfway through. He didn't want to lose Victoire's company so soon. She would disappear into the crowds of the city and he would never find her again.

"If you're paying, then, will you let me walk you home?" He asked her with a crooked, charming smile as he stood up from his own chair. "I have to find some way to be chivalrous."

"Chivalry is just a nicer word for sexism." Victoire said in a tone of voice that suggested she didn't actually believe that. "You can walk me to the tube station. I don't like people seeing where I live."

"Fair enough." Teddy nodded.

As the pair walked towards the tube station, they talked. Their topics weren't anything like their chosen careers or their reasons for coming to London, but far simpler- where they liked to holiday, co-workers who annoyed them, music they listened to and books they read (Victoire liked classics and plays, and Teddy had to find some way to make goofy horror comedies and Terry Pratchett seem as good as that. He succeeded only because Victoire's favourite book was, apparently, _Good Omens_.)

They slowed to a stop in front of the steps that would lead down into the tube station. Victoire smiled almost apologetically at Teddy, nervously shifting the position of her bag on her shoulder.

"I've had a lovely afternoon, Teddy." She told him.

"Me too." Teddy said. The smile that accompanied the statement was perhaps a little overzealous.

"I like talking to you." She admitted, tucking her blonde hair behind her ear on one side. Teddy could have sworn it was slightly tapered, but he knew that was probably just his own faery analogy running away with him.

"I like talking to you, too. I think you're amazing." He said, taking a small step closer to her. She was shorter than him by several inches. Despite his preference for tall girls, he found it endearing.

Teddy bowed his head slightly, leaning in towards her with his gaze focused on her full lips. He wondered how they would feel against his, how soft and silky they would be. He imagined her shoulders under his hands, delicate and vulnerable under him.

At the last second, Victoire turned her head to the side and took a step backwards. The freckled tops of her cheeks had taken on a pink flush.

"Goodbye, Teddy." She said, and headed down the stairs.

**A/N:**** Good Omens is a brilliant book that I suggest you read. And the 'goofy horror comedy' that Teddy is a fan of is John Dies at the End by David Wong, also fantastic. **


	3. Mr Brightside

It was the first time in months that Teddy had bought a magazine containing his own work. Back when he'd first started taking glamour pictures, he'd bought everything- it was a record of his achievements, almost. But as the novelty of the profession wore off, so did the desire to own a copy of his pictures in print. He'd been there and seen the girl in person, slept with many of them. He didn't need a magazine to remember, and besides that, he no longer wanted to remember.

The photographs he'd taken of Victoire were a very different story. He needed to see them.

However, it had been so long since he'd bought a lads' mag that he forgot how much it actually embarrassed him. The man at the counter, not much older than Teddy himself, gave him a bemused look that very clearly asked if he actually knew it was easier to find far more explicit things on the internet for free. Teddy just stared down at the floor and hoped the shop boy wouldn't remember his face.

Somehow, Teddy managed to wait until he was back at his apartment to open the magazine. He'd been waiting for the publication of his pictures, and actually having them in his hand made his chest tight with anticipation. He hadn't seen Victoire since their not-quite-a-date in that café, and he'd forgotten the colour of her eyes.

He flicked through the glossy pages, his eyes scanning over girls of varying ethnicity, breast size and level of nakedness, but with an almost uniform body type. They were all forgotten by the time he even turned the page.

Teddy found Victoire towards the back of the magazine, accidentally skipping past her and having to go back. She was printed on a two-page spread, and the magazine had chosen to print the pictures from the latter half of the shoot, when the quirky playfulness was replaced by seduction. Victoire's eyes- blue, he saw, they were a pale blue- stared out at him from the page, her teeth biting her lip and crouched on a bed. On the second page, larger, she looked over her shoulder and pulled down her briefs, just slightly. She had been photoshopped. Her glossy pink lips had been made a dark cherry instead, and her teeth were whiter and her skin smoother, devoid of the few freckles and marks he himself had seen on her. The lighting and colours were subtly different, too. Teddy found it completely unnecessary, but he'd also found her makeup unnecessary. She was beautiful enough.

There was a small amount written about her, that her name was Victoria and she was nineteen. Reading through, most of it was inconsequential and, Teddy would have guessed, false. Pure filler.

After continuing to stare blankly at the photographs for a few more moments, Teddy closed the magazine and threw it into a corner with more force than was probably necessary. He was full of regret, for not kissing Victoire, for not getting her number, for having lost her for good just like he'd feared and for letting a girl he barely knew cloud his thoughts so much.

**XXX**

Imogen was gorgeous. Teddy had stuck around after he'd shot pictures of her, chatted, invited her back to his flat. She had declined with a coy smile, and invited him to a party later that week instead- a modelling party, with her fashion model and high-end photographer friends. She only did glamour part time.

She looked better clothed than she did naked, standing outside an building Teddy could never hope to afford to live in and waiting for him in her slinky black cocktail dress and her red, red lipstick. She looked lip Snow White, if Snow White was an expensive prostitute.

"Hi, darling." Imogen smiled with one half of her mouth when Teddy approached. She had a posh voice, native to some upper class, suburban area of London. She wrapped him instantly into a hug and kissed his cheek, somehow avoiding smudging her lipstick. She was as tall as he was in her heels, a full six feet. "Shall we go up?"

Teddy glanced at the building, panelled with mirrored glass and stretching all the way up towards the moon. He nodded, condemning himself to a mildly awkward ride in the lift while Imogen said absolutely nothing, but hung off his arm and periodically kissed his ear and his neck. Yes, she was gorgeous, but either she was dull or just didn't see him as worthy of her conversation.

They rode the lift up to the penthouse, when the doors opened and Imogen lead him by the wrist into it. Her fingernails were long and sharp and bloody red, like harpy's talons.

The penthouse thumped with life and music. The main lights were switched out, replaced with other low, blue lighting. A disco ball spun and glittered from the ceiling, and Teddy very nearly rolled his eyes. The music, a song by The Killers, roared out from the state of the art sound system in one corner. The flat was still full of furniture, but it was open plan and large enough to fit in an abundance of people. Every one of them was young, trendy and beautiful. Most were girls, models flaunting their perfect bodies in short dresses and stylish skirts. Everyone held glasses of sparkling water, of champagne, of cocktails mixed expertly at the bar that stood by one wall. There was food, spread elegantly out across the kitchen counters, but it looked untouched.

"Imogen!" A voice said, all but screaming to be heard over the music. A man wearing a dark suit and equally dark sunglasses appeared like magic from the throng of people, bending to take her hand and kiss it. Teddy's supposed date smiled and batted her fake lashes. "I'm so glad you could make it." He peered over her shoulder at Teddy, and raised one eyebrow above the sunglasses.

"Teddy Lupin." He said, sticking out his hand for the man to shake and suspecting that his voice had been lost and carried away by the music. The man- a manager, Teddy suspected, he looked like the type- did shake his hand, but quickly draped his arm across Imogen's shoulders and tactfully led her away into the thick of the party.

Teddy sighed dejectedly, politely closing the door behind him. There went the only person he actually knew here. He didn't know what he'd expected; loyalty from the model girl he barely knew, or a slightly different sort of party. It wasn't the sort of thing he'd ever been invited to before. The people in this room were all higher up in the industry and better at their jobs than Teddy was. They did 'legitimate' work. Looking around, he could tell them apart easily. The managers and the talent scouts in their glossy suits, the tall and deathly skinny models, the very slightly kooky, kitschy photographers- all within the bounds of what was fashionably acceptable, of course. Everyone was an ultra-glamorous, walking clothing ad, and Teddy felt like a child. A stupid little indie kid in his tight jeans and ironically ugly jumper, his weird cat's-eye contacts and dumb hair. He'd even brought his camera, hanging around his neck like a battery powered security blanket. Stupid. If he belonged anywhere, it was not at this party, with these people.

It was in the middle of this mental vitriol against himself that he saw her.

It took three double takes for him to actually realise it was her and not just a convincing doppelganger, and once he realised that he stared openly. She was wearing a dark blue ruched dress that clung tightly to her figure and barely reached her mid-thigh, black sheer tights and fuck-me shoes. Her lips were dark purple and her eye makeup as thick and black as night. Her hair had been aggressively crimped and flipped over to one side of her hair, artfully rebellious and faux-punk. Teddy didn't understand how she could look so radically different and so identically beautiful.

There was a man standing beside her, his arm looped casually around her waist and hand on her hip. He held a nearly empty glass in his other hand and was talking animatedly to a group of models, whilst she simply stared boredly into the distance and pretended to sip her champagne.

The music seemed very far away, and the crowd as pliant as water when Teddy pushed through it towards her. Before he had a chance to move very far, Victoire saw him. Her dark lips parted in surprise. He watched as she leaned in to the man beside her, speaking into his ear before he removed his arm from around her and dodged through the people milling around the flat, towards him, towards Teddy.

"Teddy?" She said in a higher voice than he remembered her having, as though she wasn't wholly sure it was him.

"Victoire." Teddy positively beamed. He hadn't missed her. He didn't know her well enough to miss her. But a second chance _to_ know her was something he hadn't expected to get, and he was unspeakably grateful for it.

Victoire opened her mouth and closed it, repeating the gesture several times before she spoke.

"Balcony?" She suggested, inclining her head towards the glass doors that led outside the penthouse. Wordlessly, Teddy nodded, and followed her through the crowd until they broke free into the cool night air.

Teddy watched her as she bent at the knees to set her glass down on the tiled floor of the balcony before she made her way to the railing, leaning against it with her arms crossed on top of it. Again, he found himself captivated by the simple sight of her gazing out over the city that it took several moments for him to join her at the railing. He wanted to take her photo.

"The lights that never go out." Victoire said softly, glancing at Teddy. He glanced back. Her hair had all been pushed to the other side of her head, and he could see her face perfectly.

"What?" Teddy said, intelligently. Victoire smiled faintly, lifting her hand and pointing a finger in the general direction of the glowing city below them. Her nails were painted the same colour as her lips, darkened to black in the moonlight.

"The Smiths." She said. "_There Is A Light That Never Goes Out._ I think about the phrase a lot, and I think the light that never goes out is people." She paused. "I look out of my window at night and I see these lights, all across the city, and every light is a person, every light is a home. People don't ever go out."

He wondered why she was telling him this. Somehow, he doubted these were thoughts she shared with everyone. He was struck silent by it.

"Is that the type of thing you think about a lot?" Teddy asked finally, scanning the skyline. City lights, both coloured and clean, blinked and winked and shone at his eyes. London was still alive at this late hour, and he couldn't help but think about what Victoire had said- after all, someone had to have turned on each light he could see.

"I do think about that type of thing." Victoire nodded. Her own eyes were fixed on the city too. She'd barely glanced at Teddy at all. "I love London. It's so beautiful. It's vibrant, and alive."

"That's an interesting way to look at it." Teddy scoffed. Victoire raised one perfectly shaped eyebrow.

"How would you look at it, then?" She asked.

"Scummy. Loud. Unfriendly." Teddy replied. Victoire's smile was crooked on her lips.

"For shame, Teddy. I thought artists were supposed to see the beauty in things." She said.

"Call me a cynic." The young photographer shrugged carelessly. They lapsed back into silence, with Victoire shaking her head and turning her face away from him. To save the conversation, Teddy brought up something which had been puzzling him for the whole three months since he had last seen her.

"I thought you were going to kiss me." He said, notably more quietly than their previous conversation had been. "Outside the tube station. But you didn't." It wasn't a question, but he phrased it like one. He saw Victoire's slender shoulders rise and fall with her sigh.

"I was going to." She admitted. "I wanted to."

"So why didn't you?"

"Because if I had, I would have meant nothing to you." She said it bluntly, like a statement of fact, and her blue eyes were cutting as she looked at him again. "You're sexy, Teddy, and you're a glamour photographer. I know you must fuck half the models you see, and just forget them afterwards. I didn't want to be like that to you. To anyone. I just want to be remembered."

Teddy shifted awkwardly on the spot. The assessment was too accurate for his liking.

"I only wanted a kiss." He lied.

"The point still stands that if I'd given you it, you'd have forgot about me. I didn't give you what you wanted, or what I wanted, and you've remembered. You've been thinking about me since." She sounded more unsure than her words would have suggested. Her blue eyes moved away from him again, watching the sky blankly. She didn't seem to be seeing anything. "Besides, I had- have- Oscar."

"The guy back in the party, there." Teddy guessed, more darkly than he'd intended. The one who'd been touching her, with his athletic body and cool haircut, charismatic and attractive. Now that he thought about it, he actually recognised him- from the tabloids, the celebrity gossip magazines. He was Oliver Wood, the famous goalkeeper's, son. He had a reputation for decadence and the party lifestyle. Teddy was jealous, not entirely irrationally.

Victoire nodded stiffly.

"We weren't a couple back then, but he was in my life. It wouldn't have been right to kiss you." Somehow, that didn't sound as important to her as her previous reasons had been.

Teddy turned his body to the side slightly so that he could look at Victoire, really look at her. His fingers blindly reached for the pack of cigarettes in his pocket, and he lit one before bringing it to his lips. When the smoke started to curl from the end, Victoire finally looked at him, cool blue eyes focused on the cherry end. She was lazily elegant, leaning against the railings like that.

"Can I photograph you?" Teddy asked, finally, the question he'd wanted to voice since he saw her.

"You already have." Victoire pointed out dryly, her gaze flicking away from the cigarette and back towards the city.

"No, I mean properly." Teddy shook his head, taking a drag from the cigarette. "Or not properly, I suppose. Not glamour stuff. Arty, indie photos, for my portfolio. I'd put them up on my website."

Victoire was still watching him out of the corner of her eye, which held a vague spark of interest. Teddy marched valiantly on.

"I could pay you, too. Not a lot, probably, not as much as you get paid to get your kit off, but I would. I just… I think you're beautiful, Victoire. More beautiful than a city could ever be." He tapped a bit of ash off the side of the railing, where it was caught by the night breeze before it had a chance to reach the ground. "I've never met anyone who looks as good on the camera as you do. Every time I look at you, all I see is the photographs I could take."

A flicker of something dark and painful crossed Victoire's face, but it was gone before Teddy had a chance to wonder what he'd done wrong. Then she was turning around, smiling too sweetly at him and plucking the cigarette from between his fingers. She tossed it carelessly over her shoulder, and it followed the ashes that had come from it.

"Of course." She replied, and Teddy couldn't remember ever feeling so happy. To photograph someone who looked like Victoire did, he knew, would help his portfolio, his career, immensely. "You don't have to pay me, either- I'll do it as your friend."

"We're friends?" Said Teddy, surprised. Victoire rolled her eyes, and laughed. It occurred to Teddy for the first time that she had been at the party longer than he had, and was probably tipsy.

"Yes, we're friends." She reached out and grabbed his hand, squeezing it with a grin. "Come on. Let's go back to my flat."

"What?" Teddy was bewildered.

"You said you wanted to take pictures of me."

**A/N:**** Funny how the minute my block vanishes I can crank out a chapter in a day. This was fun to work on.**


	4. Violet

Victoire's flat was in a slightly nicer area than Teddy's, and when she led him inside of it, it was nicer on the inside too- nicer meaning that her bedroom and the rest of the flat were actually separate. The interior décor wasn't particularly to his tastes, too clean and modern so that it ended up looking like a show home.

"Ignore Aziraphale." Victoire advised upon walking through the front door, when a ginger tabby with the fluffiest fur he'd ever seen began winding his way around Teddy's ankles, purring. "He never learned how to be a cat, he's too clingy."

Teddy ignored the advice in favour of bending down and scratching between the cat's ears, smiling as he heard the purring pick up from a low rumble to something equivalent to a motorbike engine. Victoire had paused instead of heading further into her flat, turning to watch Teddy pet her cat.

"Named after a fictional character, I like it." Teddy nodded approvingly before he looked up at her with a grin. "My rats are Loki, Hermes and Puck. My babies, I love them."

A tiny but true smile crossed Victoire's face.

"I love animals." She said, in the same tone of voice she'd used when talking about her interpretations of a song. "I always got on better with them than I did with people. I don't like people very much." She shook her head, and the size of her smile grew as the honesty of it faded. "I'm going to go shower and change, if that isn't a problem with you. You can put on some music, if you like." She pointed in the direction of the sound system that was pushed against one wall.

Teddy watched her walk away, pushing open the pale pine door to her bedroom and then disappearing from view. From what he could see of the room beyond the crack in the door, it was very white.

He wandered over to the sound system, followed by a purring Aziraphale the whole way, and examined the CDs in the rack there. Victoire had said she liked old music, he remembered, and she hadn't been lying- 'old' was a rather broad term. There were things along the lines of Bach and Chopin, up to the Beatles, 90's bands and soundtracks from old films about unintentionally gay vampires and girls lost in labyrinths. And there was Regina Spektor.

Teddy picked a rock band at random, to see what would happen. The vocals came from an aggressive woman and the music behind her was alright, though not his type, so he supposed he was happy.

He backed away from the sound system then, looking around the flat itself. The wood floors were clean and shiny and partially covered by one large rug in white. The furniture and the kitchen counters were white too, accented by shades of lilac and violet. There was no art on the walls, simply empty frames, and photographs of two children on the coffee table. It seemed to him both very feminine and very impersonal, and he instantly disliked Victoire's decorating style.

Yet, he felt like he could learn more about this enigma of a girl by looking at the space she lived in. Listening to the hiss of the running shower beneath the thudding base of the album he'd started playing, Teddy paced slowly around Victoire's living space. Her kitchenette told him nothing and her film collection appeared to be locked away beneath the TV. He chose not to snoop quite so much as to look at it anyway. There was nothing left out on the coffee table or cream sofas, no telltale celebrity gossip magazines or sudoku books. The only thing he could see were the children's photographs, and even a brief inspection of them betrayed enough of a family resemblance for him to conclude they were Victoire's brother and sister.

Her bookshelf, however, was on full display. When Victoire had told him she liked classics and plays, that had been a vast understatement- if the shelf was anything to go by, she read _everything_. Shakespeare sat beside John Green and _Les Miserables_ had found a home next to _The Lovely Bones._ Anne Rice and the Bronte sisters shared a shelf, and Neil Gaiman titles provided a healthy dose of black among the riot of colour that was her Discworld collection.

"Classics, my arse." Teddy muttered. _The Picture of Dorian Gray_ was a classic; _A Series of Unfortunate Events_ was not. He was somewhat in awe of all the books he could see- he himself read only sometimes, and always the same authors. If this was any evidence, Victoire devoured books. Now he began to wonder if she was the type of person to live her life through paper adventures rather than real ones.

Those people had always irritated him.

He was so absorbed in his observations of her bookshelf, and then the rest of her flat, that he didn't hear the shower turn off, or the hairdryer, or the bedroom door creaking open further.

"I don't know if this might be the best place to take pictures." Victoire said from the doorway, and Teddy turned around to look at her. His eyes widened a little.

Showering had stripped all the makeup from her, revealing the freckles he'd forgotten she had. They covered the tops of her shoulders and thinned out as they made their way down her arms to vanish completely a little above her elbows; they'd been edited out of the pictures in the magazine. Her hair was the same as it had been in the café. She'd put on something white- a dress or a nightgown, he couldn't tell. Either way, it was simple and sweet and, he suspected, just a temporary measure until he told her what to wear.

Looking at that, he certainly wasn't going to tell her to change.

"Show me." He requested.

Victoire's bedroom was painted white like the living room, but her bedspread was a mix of cream and eggshell blue, the latter being the same colour as the wall behind it. There were words painted on the wall in stark white, elegantly curled script, surrounded by butterflies: "_You will go to the paper towns. And you will never come back._" Her bed had fairy lights twined around the headboard.

"In here is perfect." Teddy confirmed, his hands already fidgeting anxiously with the camera as he thought of how to photograph her. "Do you have any red lipstick? Like, hooker red."

Victoire frowned again, but nodded and made her way to the vanity table that seemed to have taken the place of a dresser in the room. A few minutes later, and her lips had been painted a glossy, cherry red.

"Perfect." Teddy repeated with another grin, gesturing towards the blue sheets. "Can I have you on the bed?"

Victoire stiffened for a moment at the innuendo in the question, which hadn't been entirely accidental. However, she made no move to correct him, or remind him of Oscar's existence. Instead, she simply sat down on the edge of her bed, looking slightly dubious.

"Is this all? Just a shoot with no lighting, in my room, wearing this?" She asked, raising an eyebrow. Teddy nodded.

"Of course." He smiled. "This is the work I like doing. Organic. Artsy."

"Hipster." Victoire teased, but she lay back on her bed anyway. The pose was so simple that Teddy didn't even know if it was a pose, but he fumbled for his camera anyway because he knew he needed to immortalize it. Victoire on her back, her hair spread out around her and her lips parted just so, hands resting palms-up and fingers curled beside her head. She saw him reaching for the camera and remained still until he'd gotten it, staring deeply into the lens as he took the picture. She didn't smile.

Teddy zoomed out and took the picture again, this time a full-body rather than upper torso shot. He captured her legs, smooth and pale with the thighs and knees tucked together whiles her calves angled apart.

Victoire smiled after that, and her hands moved down to squeeze her breasts, one of her legs lifting playfully so that the hem of her dress hiked up her thighs. Teddy shook his head.

"No, no, don't do the glamour thing." He half-pleaded. "Just… be you. That's who I want to take photos of."

Victoire looked at him in minor confusion- in fact she seemed almost lost, like she didn't know how not to do 'the glamour thing.' Still, she seemed pleased too, smiling as he dropped her hands from her breasts and fixed the hem of her skirt. Her poses were stiff at first, contrived. But as Teddy continued to take more photographs, she grew more relaxed and easy. She was just a girl in her bedroom, sitting and lying and sprawling on her bed. Her eyes gazed at various points in the room, her fingers toying with the duvet and her red, red lips parted ever so slightly. Teddy thought she was beautiful.

Sometime during the shoot, one of the straps of Victoire's dress had fallen off her shoulder, dragging part of the garment down with it. Teddy swallowed, his fingers freezing over the capture button and his mouth drying up. Victoire paused, following his gaze and coolly regarding the dipping neckline of her dress. Slowly, she reached up to the strap that was still in place, slipping it off. The dress fell quickly, stopping before it exposed too much, but Teddy could still see the curves of her breasts, smaller without a bra to push them up.

Swallowing, he photographed her like that, knelt on the bed with her dress slipping down. The view on the screen was beautiful, the innocence of her features clashing with the sensuality added by the way she wore her clothes and being added to by the vulnerability of falling fabric. He took more photos as she pulled more poses, rearranging her legs or stretching her arms above her head, lying down on top of the covers.

Victoire got off the bed and stood up to pose more, and her neckline dipped further. With the air of someone brushing off an irritating insect, she shrugged the dress off. It fell, pooling around her ankles on the bedroom floor.

Teddy stopped breathing. There was nothing to do but stare at her, stare at her pale, perfect skin and her small, rounded breasts, the triangle of trimmed blonde hairs between her legs.

"Can I-?" Teddy asked, nodding towards the camera. He sounded strangled even to himself, and Victoire smiled.

"I wouldn't have taken it off if you couldn't." She replied.

The camera continued snapping pictures as Victoire preened and posed before it. Unlike the glamour shoot, she wasn't trying to be sensual. Nor was she trying to be quirky, or cute. She was just herself, in her world, without even clothes to hide any part of her from the lens. Bare before Teddy and his camera, she sat on her bed and pretended that he wasn't there, that she was simply a girl caught in a daydream. Perhaps, Teddy thought, a girl caught in a daydream was all that she really was. Perhaps, she was just a daydream herself.

And he wanted her. He knew he was hard beneath his jeans, and he knew that she could see it. He had found himself edging closer to the bed, ignoring the zoom function so that he had the excuse of moving the camera closer. Victoire watched him, her cherry lips parted and her eyes painfully blue. Gently, ever so gently, she placed her fingers on top of the camera and pushed it down, revealing his face.

Neither of them kissed the other first, but somehow their lips were together. The camera was pulled from Teddy's suddenly limp fingers and placed on the nightstand, and then Victoire laced her fingers together at the back of his neck and pulled him to her. She kissed him, slow and sweet, and he felt like he was burning. The fire was not on his lips but deep within his chest, a dull roar that demanded he push her onto the bed and bury himself inside her. It was a primal instinct.

Yet, he made no move to act on it. He was wrapped up in the action of kissing her, of feeling her soft-like-silk lips move against his and her tongue teasing inside his mouth. Her fingers gripped the collar of the polo shirt that rose up from beneath his jumper, and they were tight enough to wrinkle the fabric as she brought him closer.

Teddy joined her on the bed just to ease the awkwardness of their kiss, kneeling between her parted thighs. When he opened his eyes he could see all of her, willingly exposed to him. She was wet, the soft folds of her skin glistening, and Teddy's exhalation was almost a whine of want.

They moved together, a single, sinuous being, and he lay between her legs. His weight was on her, pressing her against the mattress, and she was pulling at both layers of his tops at once, lifting the shirt and the jumper together. Her fingernails skittered across the skin of his stomach, raising pink lines that made his body jerk. His hips rocked instinctually against her and he listened to her quickening breaths beneath him as he helped her remove his clothes and cast them to the floor.

In only jeans now he lay back down with her, and the feel of her skin against his fanned the flames inside him. He had wanted this since he first saw her, but something about her had seemed untouchable. She was Snow White, a pixie and a princess, and she was not to be tainted.

But the princess didn't seem to agree, because it was she who was now unbuckling his belt and fumbling with the buttons on his jeans, her breasts heaving with every shuddering breath she took. Her arousal was not quiet and nor was it subtle, and seeing her desire match his was more than Teddy would have ever thought to ask for.

Once Victoire had his jeans opened she pushed down the waistband of his boxers and pulled out his cock, stroking a few times so expertly along its length that it drew a moan from Teddy's lips. Her eyes were bright and shining, and her lips had turned up into an almost manic, excited smile.

Without warning she flipped them over, straddling his hips with her body achingly close to his cock. She leaned down to capture him in a kiss that was filthier than he would ever have expected from someone who looked like Victoire, moving her tongue and her lips in ways he'd rarely experienced. Behind him, he heard the grind of wood on wood and then shuffling, and when Victoire sat up he saw she had fetched condoms from a drawer on her nightstand.

Her hands were practised and eager as she tore open one packet and slid the condom onto him. The box and empty wrapper were tossed to the floor, and they were kissing again, hungry and wanton. Teddy's fingers were in her hair and on her shoulders, pulling her closer like he wanted to melt into her, closer than they could ever truly be.

"Do you want to?" He pulled away to pant. He was aching and desperate, but despite seeing this new side to her there was a part of his mind that still saw Victoire as a delicate faery.

"Guess." She replied scathingly, and lifted her hips to impale herself on him.

Victoire moaned low and Teddy made a hissing sound, his back arching at the sensation of being enveloped by tightness and heat. Her movements started quickly, bracing her hands against his chest as she lifted her hips and brought herself back down again, bouncing in his lap. She was gasping with every movement, but Teddy was too numbly surprised that this was happening- that he was having sex with Victoire, finally-to make any noises besides the occasional, slightly startled moan. He'd known that she could be sexy, he had seen it with his own eyes when they first met. Now he saw that assuming that sensuality had been an act was foolish, because here she was now, riding him and voicing her pleasure at doing so.

The long moments ticked by and the surprise began to wear off, prompting Teddy to reach forwards and steady Victoire with his hands on her hips. Her skin was warm to the touch- predictably so, judging by the sex flush spreading across it- and soft beneath his fingers. No longer needing to balance herself, Victoire raised her hands above her head, her fingers intertwining like threads in silk. Her eyes had fallen closed and her mouth was perpetually open in a continuous moan, the lipstick she had so carefully applied smeared across both her mouths. Her breasts bounced as she moved, and Teddy watched her, entranced by her beauty. He was sweating and so was she, the beads of moisture like dewdrops on her skin.

Now Teddy was sitting up to pulling her close, gripping her hip tighter with one hands whilst the other slid up her side, moving to cup her breast one by one, his thumb ghosting across her nipples. Likewise, Victoire's hands came down from above her head. One moved to part her lips further, fingers playing harsh and fast against her throbbing clit. The other moved to cover Teddy's hand, holding it firm over her thrumming heart.

The flames of the fire that had burned dully in his chest were roaring now, and they had moved to lick at the inner side of the skin of his stomach. That skin felt tight, and hypersensitive. He could no longer keep his eyes open to watch Victoire, so he buried his face in the place where her neck met her shoulder, planting kisses against it. Her cries were louder, higher, every time his hips thrust upwards to match her movements. Those movements were becoming messy and desperate, and they clung to each other like they were the last survivors of a shipwreck, adrift in the ocean with their hands crushed between them.

When Teddy came it was like seeing stars. The desperate tightness in his lower body vanished and he was bucking helplessly upwards into her, crying out as shivers ran the length of his spine. Lights danced behind his eyes. He could feel her hand between them, moving faster and faster even as he orgasmed until _yes, yes, yes, oh!_

When they were spent, they didn't collapse together onto the bed. They stayed sitting there, Teddy still in his jeans, and held each other while they caught their quiet, wet breaths.

**A/N:**** I apologise for my lack of talent at writing smut. **

**It seems I can't escape the trap of explaining all my pop culture references. Victoire's cat is named after a character from **_**Good Omens**_**. The quote on her bedroom wall is from **_**Paper Towns**_** by John Green. The unintentionally gay vampires are **_**The Lost Boys**_**, and the other film referenced is **_**Labyrinth**_**.**


	5. Teen Idle

**A/N:**** I blame the time this chapter took on trying to sew a Karkat Vantas plush and also on rediscovering my love for roleplays.**

Teddy just held her, then; he could smell her hair, and it smelt like lavender. But the flowers were artificial, the scent of shampoo. She was warm in his arms, breathing harder and faster than he'd seen her do so before as she came down from the high of the sex. The moment felt somehow precious to him, but it was over quickly; Victoire leaned away from him, pulling herself free of his arms and removing him from inside of her. She still panted, though.

"I'm going to go and clean up." She said quietly, her fingers nervously combing through the blonde strands of her hair. Teddy simply nodded, his mind still slow and glazed over, numb with the aftermath of ecstasy. Still, he watched her as she got up from the bed and walked to the bathroom, dipping and staggering slightly on unsteady legs. He smiled lazily, and arrogantly- he knew he was good- then removed the condom from himself and tied it off, throwing it into the bin by the bed.

Relaxing slightly on Victoire's bed, Teddy fished around in the pocket of his jeans until he found his cigarettes and a plastic lighter. The pack had been crushed under Victoire's weight while she rode him, but he managed to salvage one and light it up, taking a drag with a happy sigh. It occurred to him that she probably wouldn't like him smoking in her room, but Teddy hadn't gone without a post-shag cigarette since he was fifteen, and he didn't plan to now.

He heard running water from the bathroom. It wasn't the sound of a shower, just a tap that had been turned on, and Victoire returned to the bed in only a few minutes. She spared a moment to glare at Teddy's cigarette before picking up the white nightdress from the floor and pulling it back on. Again, she was almost ethereal in her appearance. _I fucked a faery_, Teddy thought, somewhat giddily.

Victoire sat awkwardly on the edge of her bed. She faced away from Teddy, but she had her head turned so that she could see him out of the corner of her eye. The distance between them seemed enormous after they'd just been so close, an ocean made out of blue sheets.

"I've wanted to do that since we met." Teddy said finally, just to break the silence. Victoire coughed instead of replying, waving her hand slightly to clear some smoke. He felt stupid now, and selfish, for lighting the cigarette, but there was nowhere he could stub it out.

"What? Photograph me, or fuck me?" Victoire asked. Her laugh was small, but harsh and bitter. Teddy's brow creased in a frown.

"Both." He admitted with a shrug, faking nonchalance as he again brought the cigarette to his lips. "But- I mean, the shag was fantastic, but those photographs..." He shook his head, smirking. "They'll be amazing."

"You're very self-assured after sex." Victoire observed. She was smiling now, but only a little and only on one side of her face. Her eyes seemed a darker blue than usual. They were the colour of glass bottles, and they were almost sad. "You've still got your cock out."

Teddy glanced down.

"So I have." He said, carefully maneuvering to rectify that situation without horribly burning said body part with his cigarette. "There. It's away, so..." He paused, weighing the situation before he continued, "Why not come cuddle?"

Victoire laughed darkly again.

"I didn't think you were the cuddling sort." She told him, but she turned around to face him regardless, her pale legs crossed on the bed. He could have looked up her skirt from this angle, but it seemed pointless now. He'd been inside her, and now everything that she was seemed less mysterious, less intoxicating. He didn't want to touch her as much as he had an hour ago. It made him think back to her explanation of why she hadn't wanted to kiss him when they had first met, and he felt a stab of guilt in his gut.

"You're right. I'm not." He replied briskly. Victoire looked downward, picking at the hem of her dress. He wondered if it would be worth mentioning that, while that was true, he would love to cuddle with Victoire. However, he held his tongue in the end. Instead, he pointed out, "You seem upset."

Victoire didn't say anything, and Teddy frowned more deeply. The cigarette slowly burned away between his fingers.

"Do you regret sleeping with me?" He asked, sounding slightly fearful. Victoire sighed, her shoulders rising and falling slightly.

"Of course I do." She replied, and Teddy blinked. His eyes widened a little.

"I didn't think it was that obvious that you regretted it." He said. "I mean, I literally came about ten minutes ago. I didn't think it was possible for regret to set in that fast." He said dryly. Victoire shot him a sharp look.

"Clearly, you are not me." She pointed out. "Clearly, you don't have a boyfriend who's never been anything but good to you, who you just cheated on."

Teddy swallowed. He'd forgotten about Oscar- he wondered if he would want to beat Teddy up, when he found out. He'd certainly be able to.

"You don't have to tell him. Who says he has to know?" Teddy offered. Victoire gave him an incredulous look.

"That makes you sound like scum." She said bluntly, and really, he had to agree. "And anyway, him not knowing doesn't make me feel any less guilty." She sighed, hiding her face in her hands.

"Hey, at least you didn't sleep with a nineteen year old. I feel like a pervert." Teddy joked, knowing that it was the wrong thing to say the moment the words left his mouth. He'd never had a one night stand go this badly, this quickly. A quiet voice in the back of his head suggested it was because neither of them wanted it to be just a one night stand, and he almost hoped that it was correct.

Still, the way Victoire was glaring daggers at him made him think any chance he might have had at a real relationship with her had been dashed against the rocks now. There was something like dawning realization in her eyes.

"You bought the magazine, didn't you? The one you photographed me for?" She laughed again, incredulously this time. "That's so creepy."

Teddy frowned, hurt. Although he supposed he had hurt her, too, with what he'd already said. He refused to take responsibility for the sex, though, like she seemed to want him to. That had been all Victoire.

"They were my photographs." He defended himself, his voice beginning to rise. That only seemed to incense the model in front of him further.

"Wanking over your own work seems pretty egotistical." She snapped, and now he felt too far gone to try and explain that he only reason he'd bought it was because he missed her. He wanted to see her again, even if paper and ink was the only way. "I'm twenty-three, Teddy. Everything in those magazines is a lie. I thought you of all people would know that." She stopped dead in her speech, please taking a deep breath. "I think it would be best if you just left, now."

"I think I agree." Teddy replied coldly. He got off the bed, snatching up his clothes and belongings to put on and take with him (still fiddling around the cigarette). However, as he was walking to leave the bedroom, he glanced back over his shoulder for a moment and looked at Victoire, sitting there on the bed. Her expression was hurt, and distant, as she stared at the wall. He hated himself for thinking it, but she looked beautiful that way, like a sad doll. And again, he wanted to photograph her.

"Victoire?" He said, his voice soft again as regret began to creep in for snapping. Victoire looked at him, raising one eyebrow.

"Yes?" She prompted, not sounding as harsh as she had earlier either.

"The photographs..." Teddy began awkwardly. "I don't know what you'll let me do to them- the nude ones, especially. I was going to put them on my website, but..."

Victoire looked away again, her gaze downcast.

"Do what you want, Teddy." She said flatly.

"So basically, you fucked up?" James asked from the sofa he was sprawled across, laughing slightly. There was a half-smoked cigarette in one of his hands, and Loki and Hermes were sitting contentedly on his shoulder. Teddy had taken Puck from him when the lighter had come out, and was now letting the rat run over his hands as he recounted his sexual adventures and the aftermath of them to his god-brother.

"Basically." Teddy sighed heavily, frowning at James. "And you, you shouldn't even be smoking, you evil little git."

James laughed.

"I'm eighteen, I'll have all the tabs I like." He smirked, exhaling smoke in Teddy's direction. "You started smoking when you were younger than I was, too. Hypocrite." There was affection in their teasing, like brothers. They practically were brothers, now; Teddy barely remembered the six years of his life that James hadn't been in.

"We were both awful to each other, but I should have behaved better." Teddy shook his head sadly. "I don't think she'll ever want to see my face again, let alone talk to me."

"Do you give a shit?" James questioned, raising an eyebrow at Teddy. "I've seen the pictures on your site, and they're really good. _And_ you fucked her. It seems like a winning combination to me. Why does it matter if she hates you now?"

"Because I _liked_ her." Teddy said hopeless, after a few moments of searching for the answer. "I really did. I wanted to take her to dinner and kiss her goodnight and ask her to be my girlfriend. But I just turned her into another model to shag." He shook his head as if clearing the thoughts, smiling apologetically at James. "Anyway. Tell me about Albus. Is he still dating the Malfoy kid?"

"Did you honestly think I wouldn't see them?" Oscar sneered. He was a lot taller than she was, and more heavily built, but Victoire stood her ground and stared him down, her arms crossed defiantly over her chest. They were in his flat, and she just wished the fight was happening on her own turf.

"No, but I _honestly thought_ you wouldn't mind." She snapped. She felt like she'd been snapping a lot more since the night of the party, or maybe she was just noticing it now. Her mother had been short-tempered, too. It was her French blood that did it, Oscar had said. He'd found it endearing when they first met, but not now it was directed at him. "I'm a glamour model. I get photographed naked for a _living_. You've never had a problem with it before."

"You've never snuck out of a party with some poncy hipster before!" Oscar retorted. "A party, might I add, _I_ got you into- I'm trying to help you _out_ of glamour, Victoire, I'm trying to get you onto decent shoots."

"I don't need you using your influence to get me further into a career I hate anyway." She said. She had come to hate the day that she was scouted, sitting in her favourite tea room and re-reading _The Great Gatsby_. If she'd known was she was being recruited for, she'd never have let the money and exposure tempt her. Now she was too deep in to it to swim out. "I can handle myself just fine."

"Yeah, you can handle yourself well enough to let Lupin charm his way into your pants!"

Victoire stiffened. Oscar's eyes widened, and she recoiled slightly. If knowing about the pictures Teddy had taken of her made him this angry- well, at least she could understand his fury this time. But really, she could understand the anger over the pictures, too. It was different to the other shoots because it hadn't been organised, professional, and paid; and because there had been an electric chemistry between the people on either side of the camera.

"You really did sleep with him, didn't you?" Oscar sounded incredulous, and hurt. The hurt was what Victoire couldn't stand to hear. She'd thought she could love him, and it wasn't his fault she'd been wrong. That pity vanished at his next whispered words. "You dirty little _whore_."

Slapping him was a reflex. She yanked her hand back like it had been burned when she heard the sound of the blow, her eyes wet and horrified at herself. What she didn't expect was to be hit back, a punch with a weightlifter's strength behind it that sent her spinning to the floor. She held her hands out to catch herself and sent a jolt all up her arms, palms stinging and tears leaping to her eyes.

The sound faded back in after a moment, and she heard Oscar apologizing profusely- _oh, God, Victoire, baby, I'm sorry, so sorry_- and she believed the apologies. Today was the first time he'd ever even raised his voice at her. But the hit had put a shard of ice in her heart. She got up and dusted herself off, turned to face Oscar with her chin raised and jaw set.

"Thank you, for making my decision so easy." It was hard to maintain her image of independence and strength when she knew she looked so much like a pixie anyway, let alone when she was crying. "I don't think you'll want me around anymore anyway."

She turned on her heel and strode out of the flat, ignoring Oscar's protests. Only when she was out on the street did she soften and melt, hugging herself tightly and hiccuping, a fey girl who's wings had been grabbed and crushed.

When he was fourteen, Teddy thought it was impossible to ever get tired of seeing girls in their underwear. Ten years on, he'd proved himself thoroughly incorrect.

Somehow, the last shoot he'd done had been the final straw. The conventionally gorgeous girl with her bottle-blond hair and manicure paid for with her disappointed daddy's money licking a lollipop for the camera had broken him. He was done with glamour. He couldn't take it anymore- he couldn't imagine anything so far removed from what he'd actually wanted to do with his life.

Victoire's shoot with him had still been the closest thing to what he wanted to do. He still dreamed about her sometimes, wandering the woods in her white dress with dragonfly wings at her back. He missed her still, and regretted how they'd left things, but he'd had other girls in his bed in the months since he'd seen her and he'd once again forgotten the colour of her eyes.

It had been the photographs he'd taken of her that had contributed to his determination to leave glamour behind, and therefore, it had been her who had got him to go to that interview and land his new job. She was the reason he stood in front of his bathroom mirror now, running his fingers through newly-blue hair that he thought fit his current role more than mousy brown had.

Going to concerts with his camera and photographing bands for a music magazine was not the artsy, kitschy photography that he loved. Metal and the genres related to it was not the kind of music he liked. But it wasn't glamour, and that was what mattered.

Victoire's agent couldn't explain the reason for her work drying up so suddenly, but she suspected it had something to do with her split from Oscar causing bad publicity. However much she hated her job, she still needed money, and backing out of modelling now would have felt like failure. Failure was the one thing that she wouldn't have coped with. She needed to prove people wrong, everyone who had looked at her soft hands and her delicate face and saw nothing but a fragile flower to be fussed over and looked after.

It was that determination that had taken her to where she was then, smiling a glass-eyed smile and holding her legs open for the camera and hating herself all the way.

Teddy was covered from head to toe in a film of cold sweat as he shouldered open the door of his flat, but there was adrenaline flowing in his blood and he hadn't felt so alive since the concert he'd been to last week. Metal wasn't his thing but moshing was, and so were photographs. He was in love with his job and his life, and even if he hadn't had sex in months he was truly happy. Still images of a singer mid scream, a guitarist's fingers on the strings, held so much more truth and life than naked girls did. It wasn't indie art, but it was beautiful in its own respect, and he loved it.

He grabbed a box of tissues as he sat down at the computer desk, unzipping his jeans as he scrolled through the first website that came to mind. Live music made him crave sex, but dancing to it made him too exhausted to find a girl, and besides the tiredness, he had a job to do.

Videos had never done it for him- the noises were too manufactured, and the positions looked painful. His old job had turned him off of glamour, but he wouldn't turn down good, filthy porn. He stroked himself lazily as he looked through the glossy images of smiling girls, spread-eagled and obscene. He'd already settled on one image before he realised who it was, and the shock made him go limp in his hand.

Victoire didn't look as beautiful when she was oiled and caked in makeup, and not when she was holding herself open and smiling blankly at the camera. He frowned, leaning closer to the monitor and swallowing as he inspected the photograph. He hadn't known Victoire did porn now; he hadn't know anything about her since the last time he'd spoken to her, almost a year ago now.

(Somewhere else, Victoire leafed through a magazine a friend had told her to pick up, and studied the photos and thought of the man who had taken them, and what he probably felt about them.)

He didn't know it, but in different flats in different parts of the city, both Teddy and Victoire were wondering how things had gone so wrong for her, and so right for him.

**A/N:**** I'm not entirely sure how good I am at writing time-lapses, but I tried. I'm also not entirely sure if calling cigarettes tabs is a nationwide thing or not, but I went with it anyway. I always sort of imagined James Sirius to be incredibly alike both of his namesakes, in terms of personality.**


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